What services do parents really need? For lower cost

[Anonymous]

Hello parents,
I am looking to gather ideas on providing care to children of extremely busy parents who need minimal coverage and are not looking to pay outrageous amount of money. The services am looking to provide would nor include babysitting the children but they'll be filler services. For example pick ups and drop offs, grocery shopping, run to the dry cleaners, services that require no more than one hour. Parents would sign up for weekly plan or monthly plan, at a fixed rate with lots of flexibility Please share your needs, thoughts ideas.

[Anonymous]

I think this will be impossible to manage for you, but go for it! How are you going to manage five families who all need school pick-up at the same time, but don't ever need anything else?

Animal transport (to vet), any number of run-to-the-store-type things. Prepping meals. Starting a crock pot in the middle of the day. Waiting for the cable guy.

[Anonymous]

For pick ups and drop offs, every family wants that service provided between the hours of 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.

And you can't really do 2 families at once during those hours, because, say 7 year old Johnny Smith needs to get picked up from aftercare and dropped off at soccer practice at one end of town, and his 9 year old sister Betty Smith needs to also get picked up from the same aftercare, but she needs to go to dance practice at the other end of town. If you also try to tote around the 2 kids from the Jones family, well they need to get dropped off at karate and violin at other corners of town at the same time, and it is just about impossible to coordinate all that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this will be impossible to manage for you, but go for it! How are you going to manage five families who all need school pick-up at the same time, but don't ever need anything else?

Animal transport (to vet), any number of run-to-the-store-type things. Prepping meals. Starting a crock pot in the middle of the day. Waiting for the cable guy.

Would you really send your pet to the vet with a stranger? Mine are very anxious at the vet even with me, and I would never send them with someone else.

[Anonymous]

I really need someone to do some of the research/mental work for me. I want to tell someone that my kid wants to play soccer in the fall and have a list of the teams that are available, the cost, practice times, and commitment level/ability of the players. Or that I want to go on vacation in Florida next June, and give four or five options of places to stay with a list of things to do there. Or that I need a dentist or a pediatrician, and give lists of availability, pros/cons, and what health insurances they take. Or summer camp, or tennis lessons, or private schools.
I feel like I spend so much time trying to figure out what is even available, let alone the right option for us. I would so much rather spend that time and energy on my actual work or playing with my kids or spending time with my husband.

[Anonymous]

Thank you very much for your responses. We're thinking about starting as a team of 2, so there will be two cars available, and we be providing a mix of services. Such as:
Meal preps, weekend and evening babysitting, running errands, personal assistance (airport pick ups and drop offs, booking flights, hotels) occasional overnight sitting etc...
We admit this needs a lot of thinking through and therefore grateful for your comments

[Anonymous]

Task rabbit would be a great place to search to get an idea of he types of tasks people need filled!

In addition to the above, organization services would be valuable (organizing closets, organizing photos and creating proofs for printing albums, etc).

[Anonymous]

Setting up playrooms or nurseries, babyproofing, prepping baby purees. Definitely research. As a nanny I started researching preschools when my twin charges were 1 even though they didn't need to start until 3 because we needed to narrow it down by location, time, program type, etc.

In fact, you might do well advertising it as something that can be given as a gift--Infant Concierge services:
X hours of registry consultation
X hours of nursery setup
X hours of child care consulting (talk about daycare/nanny/share options in the area, how to interview, how to handle wait lists)
X hours of overnight newborn care
X hours of babywearing consulting
X hours with a sleep coach
X hours of baby puree prep
X hours of finger food prep
X hours of baby proofing

Then the toddler version:
X hours on the 2-1 nap transition
X hours on toddler discipline
X hours toddler-proofing
X hours of potty-training consulting
Etc. you get it